


Two Comets Lost, Following the Trails of Stars Unknown

by dustoftheancients



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, and it's not necessarily good, enemies to hesitant friends (implied to lovers), the Force has a will, the beginning of a slow burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 17:41:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9134425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustoftheancients/pseuds/dustoftheancients
Summary: He calls out to her as if through the Force, a pull that repels and attracts her in equal measure. He draws nearer to her as if he can’t help but follow that strange call.She backs away."You can't fight destiny."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Karla_shadow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karla_shadow/gifts).



> It's sort of difficult to make a <10,000-word oneshot into something resembling a slow-burn enemies-to-friends-to-lovers fic, but hopefully I created something that at least hints at it. It was very fun to write, at least!
> 
> Happy Holidays!

Rey spends every moment of every day with the sickening awareness that sooner or later she will meet Kylo Ren again.

It crosses her mind when she does her morning stretches. She’s reminded with every defensive move Luke teaches her – and every _offensive_ move.

She knows that she’s learning blocking techniques so that she can defend against him when the time comes. And when she’s learning to strike, it's so that she can hold her own against him when they fight again. Maybe, _possibly_ , it might even help her win.

Because she knows – the next time they see one another, the next time they fight-

It'll be to the death.

She’d kill him gladly, but the hard, cold truth of it is that he is better than her. So she'd gotten a few lucky strikes in after he'd already been injured. Next time, he’s sure to be prepared.

He’s sure to kill her.

She's not ready, not by a long shot. He's had decades to learn what she’s only had months. She's good in a scrap, but in a _duel_? She knows her odds.

She knows that she won't get lucky twice.

She thinks about it constantly, and entire phantom confrontation that she’s built up in her head. In her mind, it doesn't go well for her. She loses. She _dies._ It sends a violent crawl of fear creeping down her spine every time she follows the imaginary story through to the end.

She doesn't want to die.

The make-believe danger feels as real and as present as Kylo Ren’s blade felt when it popped and sizzled mere inches from her skin. She uses it to motivate her, to push her farther in her studies when all she really wants to do is find a safe corner and wait until all of the Force nonsense goes away.

That’s what Luke says it is – the Force is calling them towards some joined clash of destiny. He can feel it.

So can she, and that’s the problem.

Luke warns her not to take shortcuts. He thinks she’s calling on dark emotions. Maybe he can sense it.

“I'm not taking shortcuts,” she says. The terror that nips at her feet is very real, and it doesn't feel like a shortcut at all.

Kylo Ren is more of a ghost than a man to her after all the time that has passed. She has only seen him in person several times. Sometimes she thinks that she can forget his face entirely. Even the burning, bubbling flesh from the wound she’d given him.

Left in the snow, burning and bleeding and terribly dark. She wishes that he had just died there.

But forgetting someone is a sort of death, one that she knows well, and at the present it’s all she can do. So she tries very hard to forget everything about him besides the danger he poses. The red of his blade, the dark hair that whipped around his face, the long, sad expression to his mouth. She does her best to forget all of it.

She nearly does, sometimes.

Occasionally.

But at night she dreams of him, and she remembers.

* * *

 

When she spots him, he isn't aware of her. His attention is focused on the horizon, towards the other end of the ruins the First Order troops had found them in. He’s just – standing there.

She stops, freezes cold in her tracks.

Her mind stutters, then halts.

This is-

_Kylo Ren, Kylo Ren, Kylo Ren_ – her brain starts ringing, singing danger with every fiber of her being. It isn’t right, he isn't supposed to _be_ here, she isn't supposed to _see_ him yet.

She's not ready to die.

She doesn't want to die.

Her hand flies to the lightsaber hanging from her belt, new and untested against his loud, viscous blade. It's not a test that she's looking forward to. She hadn't prepared herself before the battle, she isn't prepared for him.

She doubts she’ll ever be entirely prepared for him.

He still hasn't seen her. She doesn't know which lucky stars are looking out for her, but she thanks them profusely. Keeping her hand on her weapon, she takes one _very slow_ step back, eager to just turn and go.

But then his head snaps to the side, and she’s staring at his horrendous mask. Her breath shudders.

She didn't expect him to be wearing his mask again. She doesn't know why she's surprised.

For a second, she just stares. He remains unmoving.

The air between them charges like one of the electrical storms in the lower atmosphere of Wynkahthu. She’s fairly certain that she can’t breathe.

“Rey. It's been a long time.”

His voice sounds harsher in the mask. She's surprised that she can remember how it should really sound, the low timber of his tone when he speaks. His voice sounds so different like this. She's glad, because this voice isn't one that's connected to a person.

It's just dark and mechanical.

But the relief is almost nothing, because she _hates_ that he sounds like it's a pleasant surprise to find her among all of the chaos of the battle. She hates it so much that for a moment all of her fear is forgotten, and her lightsaber is already activated in her hand.

Facing the monster again.

She tells herself that she can do this.

“Ren.” It's the only greeting he gets.

His mask doesn't move, but she knows that his attention has caught on her new blade. She can't help the spike of curiosity in her chest. What does he think of it, she wonders. The blade is sure and steady, the complete antithesis of his. There's a tiny spark of pride in her chest when she thinks about that.

But his unstable blade can kill just as easily as hers, so she cuts off her distraction and focuses.

He pulls out his lightsaber and activates it. Even from where she stands, the _crackle-pop_ of his lightsaber is thunderous in her ears.

It spits death.

Rey remembers.

“Aren't you going to come at me?” She spits, because she's not quite brave enough to leave her high ground, and because it unnerves her that he seems content to simply stare at her. “Don't you want your rematch?”

His muscles bunch up. She can feel the danger tingling behind her neck.

“Do you?”

It's mocking, but he's angry.

She wonders if he got medical treatment in time to prevent scarring.

He moves to attack her. She raises her blade. But they don't meet – they don't even get close.

An X-wing Starfighter screams towards them, trailing dark smoke behind it. It crashes between them like a tiny piece of hell bursting from the sky. Metal and fire rain down around them.

Rey cries out in surprise and flings herself behind the remains of a stone pillar to shield herself. Kylo Ren disappears behind the wreckage. It's too much to hope that he’s been caught up in the crash, because she would sense it if he died.

She will know the exact moment he dies.

If she doesn't die first.

The crash is the perfect opportunity to escape, though, and she takes it. She pushes off the pillar and runs away from the burning wreckage, away from the doomed confrontation as fast as she can.

She has no idea what becomes of him, or where he goes after that.

* * *

 

Luke knows that she's seen him again.

He doesn't say how. When she returns from the battle back to the Resistance headquarters, he is there waiting for her.

“You've met my nephew again.” It's not a question.

“I have.”

His expression is guarded, but she knows that he is surprised to find her completely unscathed.

She is grateful for his teachings. He has mentored her and trained her, opening her eyes to the Force and it’s ways, as terrifying as it is to learn that there is a presence that wants to control the fabric of everything. In some ways, he’s been more of a father to her than anyone before him. But it's the times like these, the moments where he looks at her and expects her to confront Kylo Ren – to _kill_ him or _be killed_ – that she resents him.

He doesn't expect her to succeed. The expression he gives her is proof.

But he's going to send her to die, anyway.

It makes her feel like a sheep led to the slaughter, but she doesn't tell him that. She doesn't try to tell anyone about it, other than Finn. He doesn't get it, either. Not truly.

“You don't want to beat him? To make him pay for what he did to Han?”

Rey flinches as she always does when Han is mentioned. He is still an open wound in her chest, one that is poked too often to truly be allowed to heal. For Finn it’s the same, but different. Han was a hero to him, but she knows her friend has seen enough death to know that heroes always die.

But for her, Han was the first time she had felt looked after. She had looked up to I'm in a way that she’s never looked up to anyone. He was almost a father-figure; he would've been, if his son hadn't killed him.

The memory hardens her tone.

“Of course I do,” she says automatically. “That's not what I'm saying.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I'm saying that I won't win. I can't. And Luke knows it.”

The conviction that settles on his face is one of the reasons she loves her friend. “Of course you'll win, Rey. I believe in you, and I'm always going to have your back.”

She thinks that he's the first person to love her like this.

But he still doesn't understand.

* * *

 

General Organa doesn't look for her son, but the Resistance does. Rey doesn't think that they know who he is, not really. They think they're chasing one of the top First Order targets, a known Force user, unpredictable and shrouded in mystery. He doesn't often show up on the battlefield.

But occasionally, they get lucky.

Or unlucky, as he kills all of the Resistance members who find him.

That's how the leadership knows that they've found him.

They send troops, they send Luke, and they send her. Finn is away on another mission, and isn't there to have her back.

This time, when they land on the mid-rim world of Ruusan, she expects to find him. She has spent the entire trip preparing herself for it. For her impending death.

She is as prepared as she'll ever be.

But by the time they arrive, he has disappeared.

Luke expects that he hasn't gone far. “I sense him close-by,” he tells her, “but I can't pinpoint where he is.” So they spread out and search for him. Rey starts to follow Luke, but he lifts his hand and tells her to stay. A little miffed at being brushed off, she does.

That is where Ren finds her.

This time, he is not wearing his mask.

He still has the scar she gave him.

“I've been waiting for you.”

Her lightsaber is already thrumming in her hand, power begging to be released. She doesn't know if it will be enough.

“Too much of a coward to show yourself when there's more than one of us?” She spits. It's an attempt to both raise her bravado and to aggravate his pride. To that end, she’s very successful.

But her words can't hide her fear from herself.

“Still hiding behind Skywalker’s skirts?” He snaps.

“Go space yourself.”

She raises her blade, steadies her breathing. She can do this, she tells herself.

He raises his own blade, and she has the awful sense that she's looking at the very thing that will kill her.

They're more evenly-matched than she had ever dared to hope, but he is still better than her by a wide margin. He nearly dissects her twice, although the second time he tries he leaves an opening for her to plant her boot in his face.

Her blood thunders in her ears, adrenaline feeding her system as she manages to hold her own. She just has to hold him off until the rest of her people arrive.

And the Resistance does arrive, eventually.

Ren uses the moment it takes her to recognize the reinforcements to swing at her from the side, and she barely raises her lightsaber in time to block it. His blade slides against hers and they lock.

The two of them are too close for the Resistance soldiers to get a clear shot. They fire anyway. It is _Kylo Ren_ in front of them, they’d be foolish not to. A few of them sizzle past their heads, and one catches the hem of Kylo Ren’s outer robe. But a couple of the shots are aimed just a little too far to the right.

It all happens before she can entirely register it.

He breaks away from their lightsaber lock, grabs her wrist so she cannot swing her blade against him, and uses his lightsaber to block the blaster shots that would've hit her.

By the time she turns her head, it's already happened.

She's too stunned to move.

He drops her wrist like it's burned him, although it’s her skin that feels seared by his touch. Luke appears from the same direction as the Resistance soldiers, none of whom missed how he protected her. Luke's weapon blazes a bright green in his hand.

“Ben!” He calls.

But Ren is already gone.

* * *

 

Rey replays the moment over and over in her mind. She tries to see it from Kylo Ren’s perspective. What he did – was it just reflex? Or was it calculated? It is just that he feels a particular ownership over her death?

A part of her thinks that he _does_ own it.

Or maybe, a tiny part of her whispers, _she_ owns _his_.

Luke never speaks of the incident, but she knows that the soldiers told him. And when they get back, she knows that he tells General Organa.

It is the general who corners her in the hall outside of her quarters. She looks at her with the frankness of a woman who has lived too long to beat around the bush.

“You've done something to endear yourself to him,” is what she tells Rey.

She might as well have told her that she has an incurable disease.

“What I mean is, for whatever reason, you aren't someone he wants dead.”

Rey asks her what that means. To her, it's as if she’s being told that he is refusing the bloody destiny the Force has force upon them. That refusing the Force is even _possible_.

She’s never thought of that.

But it's not true, because she knows how Luke looks at her. How Finn looks at her. How everyone in the Resistance looks at her.

She and Kylo Ren are tied together by death.

Her or him. The Force wants them to kill each other. It doesn’t matter what anyone else wants, no one is outside the will of the Force. Luke has told her this many times.

But she doesn't want to die.

The general takes Rey’s hands in hers – delicate and manicured and every inch the hands of a queen – and implores her to speak to her son.

“Next time you see him, tell him – anything. But try and talk to him. _Please_.”

She won't.

It won’t do any good.

But she nods anyway.

* * *

 

It’s over four months before she sees him again.

They meet as enemies on the battlefield, as if they are just two soldiers on opposite sides of a war. Soldiers who are two of the only people in the galaxy to carry lightsabers.

She didn't know that he was going to be there, but she's beyond being surprised – she's been looking for him for months. On all of the missions in all of the battles, she has looked for his burning blade. She has studied every shadow, kept an eye over her shoulder for any sign of his dark hair, his menacing gait.

He has become the object of nearly every thought, and she loathes him for that.

His mask covers his face. She doesn't care.

They spot each other at the same time, but it is she who charges first, raising her blade with the intent to kill _._

Kylo Ren raises his blade and blocks her strike, and every strike after that. He's gotten better, she notices with a sharp pang of dread.

He's gotten _better._

And she's just grown more afraid.

With a move too fast for her to react to, he knocks her off her feet. Her lightsaber slips from her grip, rolling away somewhere on the battlefield. She loses sight of it.

But her focus is rather fixed on _his_ blade, which is pointed at her throat.

Chest heaving, Kylo Ren steps closer. His mask tilts and he growls, “After all this time – _now_ you're afraid of me?”

Rey wants to spit in his eye, just to prove him wrong.

Even if he isn't – not entirely.

“It's not _you_ ,” she snaps, refusing to scramble away from his blade. Now she has to show him that she isn’t afraid. _She’s not_ , she tells herself _, she’s not._

But she’s about to die.

The laugh that barks from his mask sounds harsh and distorted, almost like static. It holds no amusement.

“You're lying. I can feel your fear.”

He moves away just slightly when he says this, his tone a strange fix of disbelief and rage. It’s enough so that Rey has the opening to reach her hand out and recall her saber to her hand. Her weapon snaps into her hand in a blink of an eye.

With her other hand, she knocks Ren off his feet with a blast of the Force. He goes flying back several feet, landing on his back with a _thud_ that she hears even over the screaming, booming noises of the battle around them.

She's on her feet in a flash, advancing on him much in the same way he has just done to her. Her lightsaber thrums in her hand. But when she reaches him, he's already half on his feet, too quick for her to finish the fight with just one blow.

So instead she stops out of arm’s reach and demands an answer to the question that has just occurred to her. “Why aren't you scared then? Our destiny is to _die_.”

“That's not my destiny,” he insists. She can hear the snarl in his voice, the conviction – and the hesitation.

“But the Force _wills_ it.” As she speaks the words, the final piece of her fear clicks into place.

It's not Ren that she's truly afraid of.

“You don't know that.”

He is strangely willing to talk to her rather than fight her, even in the middle of a battle that has blasters firing all around them and fighters zooming over their heads. Maybe it's the strangeness of the moment that prompts her to answer.

“Yes, I do.” She snaps. Then she pauses and really looks at him. “You do, too, don't you? Are you ordered to kill me?”

He hadn't been before – back on Starkiller – and she's wondering. She has a feeling she knows what the answer is.

“Only if you can't see reason,” he admits.

She lifts her chin. “I'm supposed to kill you.”

Luke has never admitted as much out loud, but she knows. It's the exact opposite of what the general would want her to say. She doesn't care. It will push him farther away from the Resistance, farther away from his family, and quite possibly make it so that she _has_ to kill him.

As if there has ever been a chance of him coming back to them.

Still, she almost feels – _guilty_ , for saying it. Guilty for destroying all that the general still hopes for.

Ren’s back straightens, but he doesn't look surprised. He looks _angry._

“Well, Skywalker couldn't do it. I suppose he thinks you have enough potential to succeed where he has failed.” He is spitting angry, and he advances. She supposes she has ended their conversation.

Rey stumbles back a half-step and meets his blade with hers.

* * *

 

Kylo Ren’s words are on her mind the entire flight back to the Resistance base.

Has Luke already tried to put an end his nephew? It’s something that she's never considered before. It would make sense – who better to end the threat that Ren poses than the man who trained him? Even if they are family.

But he said that Luke wasn't able to do it.

She admits that it's very possible that Kylo Ren was just puffing his chest out in the face of a death threat. But it makes sense for Luke to have tried to kill him.

Rey goes to her Jedi teacher as soon as she lands. The general wants to speak with her, she is told, but she still goes to him first.

He is waiting for her.

“Have you tried to kill him before?”

Her words taper off at the end, stumbling to a halt at the look on his face. Even without answering her, he has. She mentally kicks herself for being so pig-headed as to ask.

Of course he's tried.

Of course he has.

“There is a scar,” Luke runs his hand over the right side of his abdomen, from breast to hip, fingers splayed as if to demonstrate the size. “I gave it to him.” His eyes shine with memories so painful that Rey has to look away. She doesn't want to imagine what it was like for him to cut down his own nephew. She wonders what expression Ren made. Did he feel betrayed?

"What happened?" She whispers.

He drops his hand. With a calm tone that belies the look of anguish in his eye, he says, “I left him for dead. But Kylo Ren is stubborn.” It is one of the few times she's heard him use Ren’s name.

She left him for dead, too – lying in the snow, burned and bleeding.

He is stubborn, she thinks. Even besides his skill in battle, he will not die easily.

He won't make it easy.

The look on Luke's face makes her stumble over her words. “How do I defeat him?” She asks, and she does not mean in battle.

Luke contemplates his answer for a long time.

“You matter to him.”

Rey's throat closes up. The general had suggested the same to her, but it isn't something that she wants to hear. The thought that Ren _cares_ in any form or fashion, that he's in any way _invested-_

But then Luke continues.

“Maybe that will be enough to allow you to get close enough to give you and opening.”

It's the opposite of what the general had said.

Rey almost can't believe what she's hearing. If she gets close enough, perhaps she can kill him. Perhaps she won't be the one _swallowed whole_ by the fate decided for her by the Force.

It sounds like a glimmer of hope.

* * *

 

Rey doesn't know what she'll say when she sees Kylo Ren again. She only knows that she will need to talk to him to get close.

_You matter to him._

She doesn't know how, but she will need to find some way to use that against him. He himself admitted that he won't kill her if her doesn't have to; he will talk to her, she is sure of it.

It's ironic, she thinks, that she's purposely moving towards her blasted destiny, now. Or the man who represents it. And all on the chance that she will be able to conquer the will of the Force, at least enough so that it's not _she_ who has to die.

Maybe she can win, if she plays it smart.

If she plays his weaknesses – assuming she _is_ a weakness.

The thought still makes her exceedingly uncomfortable.

She still dreams of him. Only the dreams have changed, sometimes – because sometimes she kills him.

In her dreams she sometimes _wins._

Although, in the dreams where she kills him – they aren't _good_ dreams. Those are the dreams when she wakes up shaking like a leaf, half-dissolved into a puddle of cold sweat, and hot tears blurring her vision. She always checks her hands for blood after she wakes up. She always has the sense that she's done something horrible.

They're just dreams, she tells herself. They don't mean anything.

She manages to put them far from her mind every morning, but at night the visions swim behind her eyes and she can't get away from them.

And when she next sees Kylo Ren stumbling down the hall of an old hospital-turned Resistance outpost on Belsavis, clutching his leg as he bleeds on the tile floor, she thinks of those dreams.

He spots her after a moment and heaves a great sigh, as if he is greatly inconvenienced by her appearance. He takes his hand away from his leg and holds his lightsaber at the ready. She can see that he is trying not to favor it. But his mask isn't on this time, and his grimaces hide nothing.

She doesn't deactivate her lightsaber, but she doesn't raise it, either. She stays on the opposite end of the hall.

There is a strange moment where they both just stand there, staring at each other. Neither makes a move.

Even after seeing him, no words come to her. She opens her mouth to speak, but can't think of anything.

What should she say?

“What happened to your leg?”

It's all she can come up with. She feels a little like a fool for asking.

His gaze never wavers, but he grows visibly incensed at her words. “I can still fight,” he insists, as if she had been insinuating that he can't.

Anger flares up in her, but she presses her lips together and shoves it down. “This is a small outpost, too small for _Kylo Ren_ to trouble himself.” She narrows her eyes. “Why are you here?”

His answer is only a moment delayed. Something flickers across his face, but she is too far away to see what it is.

“I came for you.”

His voice seems to echo between them. She tries not to flinch, or think too deeply on what he means.

“Well. You found me.”

Ren doesn't say anything. He starts to advance on her, but she wills herself to hold her ground. She holds up her lightsaber at the ready, bracing herself for the strength of his blows. But even though he looks ready to attack, he stops just out of reach.

She feels the push of his mind as he tries to pry into her mind, but she has learned how to block her mind from unwanted intruders. It was one of the first things Luke taught her. Her resistance only seems to confuse Ren for some insane reason, who – surprisingly – stops his attempts easily enough.

He tilts his head a little. His expression is twisted with pain, but also suspicion and pure confusion. “Are you not going to attack me?”

It's a very likely possibility, but Luke suggested that she try nudging his fascination with her a little. If it means gaining the advantage on him, then she will willingly talk to him all day.

So she tries a tactic that will – hopefully – unarm him a little. Or it could make him attack. She doesn't really know.

“Your mother – she wants me to try talking to you.”

It’s the last thing he expects her to say. She can tell by how his spine snaps ramrod straight, how his breath shudders out of his chest like a broken-down speeder, how his vicious blade lowers, just a little.

For the moment, she has him.

He works his mouth for what feels like the longest time, and when he speaks, it’s with a raspy sort of tone that sounds like he's on the verge of – _something_. She can’t tell.

“Does she, now? That’s a change of tune from last time we saw each other.”

It's bitter. But he's listening.

Before she can say anything else, a dozen stormtroopers round the corner. They fire on her without hesitation.

She stumbles back several feet in her haste to deflect the shots. It requires too much of her focus, focus she can't afford to waste when Ren is so close. So she retreats.

“ _Hold your fire_ ,” Kylo Ren roars, throwing his hand out and blasting his own men with a wall of the Force.

The power he uses raises the hairs on Rey’s neck.

He spins back around to her, but she has already turned the corner, and she doesn’t look back.

* * *

 

“He’ll talk to me,” she practically whispers. Luke looks unsurprised.

He nods. “Good. Then maybe you can convince him to see reason.”

The _or deal with him if he won't_ goes unsaid. As does their opinions on which outcome will be the most likely.

* * *

 

At first Rey thinks that she is dreaming. The sirens, the not-too-far rumblings of earth that shake the walls around her. Voices pass in and out of her consciousness, too vague to make out but obviously alarmed.

A blast close enough to rattle the walls of the quarters shakes her awake, pulls her from a muddled dream that she forgets as soon as her brain reconnects to reality.

They're under attack.

She scrambles out of her bunk and races out of her quarters in little more than a pair of pants and her chest wrappings. She doesn't even remember throwing her boots on.

It all seems so surreal to her as she rushes past each hallway; D’Qar is the closest place she’s had to home since her old AT-AT. To see it attacked by the First Order-

There's something at the back of her mind, something that tells her that this is significant. The Force feels very near-by, a presence that almost strikes her as sentient.

Whatever this attack is, she knows that it will play into the Force’s malicious will somehow.

And as she bursts out into the hangar to see dozens of dead Resistance fighters and the on-going battle outside, she _hates_ the Force. If this is a push towards destiny – death as a prelude for more death – then she will push back. She won't let this happen.

She _can't_.

Finn, Luke, and the general are her priorities. She can't locate Finn with her senses, which is either good or very, very bad. Luke is making his way towards her. The general is the closest, and Rey can spot her as she runs into the hangar, a group of officers around her. They head for one of the last two shuttles.

She disappears up the ramp.

Then Kylo Ren bursts into the hangar.

Before Rey can react, a rocket fires off twice. The first shot hits the ground near the front of the hangar, destroying one of the X-wings before it can get off the ground and killing two soldiers instantly. The second hits the ceiling above the shuttles.

It's going to collapse. From where she's standing, Rey can see that the shuttle won't get out from under the cracking stone in time.

Is this the Force’s doing, she can't help but think.

Does it just want everyone _dead_?

The rubble freezes.

She blinks, feeling the sheer power it takes to hold up a slab of stone that size, and turns. Ren has his hands outstretched, his face contorted into a pained expression that she can read even from the other side of the hangar.

And she can see how much he’s shaking.

The general's ship only needs a few moments to start moving, to slip from the hangar and try to fight its way to safety. Ren is _saving_ his mother, but it's taking everything from him, every bit of energy and concentration.

He's leaving himself wide open for attack.

She could do it – _should_ do it.

Take the opportunity and _end_ him.

He's too far to get close enough to be able to attack with her lightsaber, but she still has the blaster Han gave her. She thinks that she likes the irony of using it on him. It's not a difficult shot; he's right there, out in the open.

The blaster slides easily from its holster. She aims it with ease. It's ready to fire.

It'll only take one shot.

Only one.

Then it's over.

She breathes.

His chest is heaving like he's actually, physically holding up the ceiling.

He's saving his _mother’s life._

And he's already saved Rey’s life, once. She remembers the look on his face after he did it. Shock, confusion. Is he confused about why he's allowing the general to escape, too?

She should fire the blaster anyway.

But she doesn't.

The shuttle passes out from under the hangar and Kylo Ren lets the ceiling collapse, billowing dust from the debris into the air and obscuring him from view. The moment passes.

Somehow, even amid the dust and debris, he notices her across.

He sees her arm raised.

He recognizes what she was about to do, she thinks. And he recognizes that she didn't do it.

He calls out to her as if through the Force, a call that repels and attracts her in equal measure.

They're even now _,_ she wants to say. 

It didn't mean anything.

He draws nearer to her as if he can’t help but follow that strange pull between them. She backs away, an attempt to resist it. She holsters her blaster.

Luke is close, she can feel it. Kylo Ren can, too, if his sudden change in demeanor is any indication. The dreamlike quality of his expression hardens and a dark scowl grows on his face.

“Don't. Follow.” she commands. He looks at her like he is going to disobey her. But when she raises her lightsaber and slowly backs the rest of the way out of the hangar he doesn't follow.

She still feels the pull, but she doesn’t look back.

* * *

 

She wants to tell Finn about what she saw on D’Qar. She wants to tell someone.

It burns in her chest like some kind of awful secret. But when she has the opportunity, when Luke is sitting there and she knows that this is the moment to say something-

She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t know why.

* * *

 

The next month flies by. Rey’s days are filled with doing her part in the relocation of the Resistance headquarters. The possibility of the First Order showing up at their doorstep again is a constant threat, especially since no one is entirely sure how they found them in the first place. The whispers are that the Resistance is riddled with First Order spies, but Rey doesn’t know anything about that.

Finn shakes his head when she asks him what he thinks.

“I don’t know,” he admits. He takes a sip of his caf, which has been sitting on the table for so long she knows it has to be stone-cold. “The First Order is…bad. They have ways of making you do what they want, even if you don’t know it.”

Kind of like the Force, she thinks.

A shadow passes over his face, dark and secret. She knows that he’s seen more than he’ll probably ever tell her – or anyone – and she doesn’t want to make him relive those memories. She changes the subject.

* * *

 

The First Order suffers a great loss on Belasco, the first major victory for the Resistance after losing D’Qar. It’s a huge boost to morale, and even Rey feels a little uplifted by the outcome.

Finn, who had led troops during the battle, returns with a blaster burn in his side and a wide grin on his face. Rey’s heart stutters at seeing him wounded. He is her only real friend. If she loses him-

He pulls her into a tight hug despite his injury. “We did it, Rey. We took down a star destroyer.”

She can hardly believe it, and she says as much.

“Hell yeah, we did,” Her friend leans in closer. His eyes are shining. “We got the _Finalizer_.”

“Is that the ship you were stationed on?” There is something in his voice, something that tells her that she should know the ship. Her heart does something strange in her chest, nothing like what she felt when she first caught sight of her friend.

He nods. “It’s General Hux’s flagship. It’s the ship Kylo Ren uses, too.”

The news is monumental. It’s – if the Resistance has managed to kill both the highest First Order general _and_ its most dangerous Force user in one single battle, then the Resistance has all but won. It’s a tremendous victory.

Tremendous.

Rey’s tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth. Suddenly she feels parched.

If Ren is dead, then what does that mean? Has she been mistaken in her belief that the Force has been pushing them towards each other so that one will destroy the other?

But he’s stubborn. He wouldn’t die so easily.

Surely – surely she would have _felt_ something.

She would have felt it.

“He’s not dead.”

Finn furrows his brow. “Who’s not dead?”

“I would’ve felt it.” Her belief in that fact solidifies as she says the words. There is no way that Ren’s destiny was to die in some battle against the Resistance. His destiny – it’s tied with hers. She’s always felt it, always known it. He wouldn’t simply – _die_.

Because it’s _their_ destiny.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Finn says.

“Ren,” she snaps as if he should have known. It takes her a moment to collect herself. “Kylo Ren isn’t dead.”

“How do you know?”

“Because-” she starts, but she stops herself. Finn won’t understand. She doesn’t understand, not really. She just-

She shakes her head. “He’s not dead.”

Her friend looks like he wants to say something. She turns away before he has the chance.

* * *

 

She has a dream the next night that Ren comes to her bunk as a great shadow. Leaning over her, he blocks out nearly all the light from D’Qar’s moons. His hands grip her shoulders so tightly that she wants to cry out, but she can't.

She's trembling all over.

His hands begin to slide down her arms, and then tighten on the small of her waist. She feels very tiny in his grip, and in the logic of the dream she cannot move.

Kylo Ren’s form solidifies as he leans even closer – a shadow, to a ghost, to a man – and whispers in her ear.

“We’re in this together.”

It’s a comfort. Or it’s supposed to be.

Then he runs his hands further down her waist, past where her pants should be. His fingers trail searingly towards where he of all people should not go.

She is naked, she realizes with a spike of terror. Every inch of her exposed like the soft underbelly of an animal.

And Kylo Ren is very nearly a predator.

His fingers dip into her heat, and she whimpers in fear and longing.

“Are you afraid to die?” He asks. His voice is a low rumble, like thunder.

Sensation fills her, but she knows she must answer. “Yes,” she gasps.

It's the right answer. It's the truth.

She spreads her legs.

Repositioning himself in front of her, keeping one hand splayed across her lower abdomen, her attention narrows down to him. He fills her focus as the rest fades to murky shadow.

“Don’t be afraid, Rey.”

For a split-second, she almost forgets that she’s not awake.

Then he bends down and buries his face in her sex. In her dream she watches him eat her out until she screams.

She wakes up shaking like she'd just woken up from a nightmare, with burning cheeks and a humiliating wetness between her legs.

After that, she can't sleep.

* * *

 

She thinks about Ren more than she is willing to admit. It’s not just that he is on her mind, lurking in the outskirts of her thoughts – it has been that way ever since their first fight on Starkiller. He has colored every new move that she’s learned, every new technique that might give her an edge. In a way, he has accompanied her throughout her entire training.

But it’s not that.

It’s that her thoughts have become – _different_.

Sometimes she thinks about the time he deflected the shots meant for her. More often, she thinks about how he saved his mother. And how she didn’t take the opportunity to kill him.

Occasionally, when she feels particularly brave, she thinks about the dream.

But she's never brave enough to think about it for very long.

She wonders about him, about his willingness to talk to her. He doesn’t want to kill her. Sometimes he acts like he does – but he doesn’t.

Both Luke and the general think that’s significant.

She didn’t used to agree, but she’s starting to change her mind. Maybe it is significant. She just – doesn’t know how.

She’s been waiting for him. It’s taken her a while to admit it to herself, but she has been. Ever since the battle at Belasco, he’s been off the radar. As of their latest reports, the Resistance is listing him as MIA. Some think he's been killed. Finn does.

Rey knows better.

He’ll show up, most likely when she least wants to see him. Well, she never wants to see him. But sometimes she still feels the pull, that same attraction she felt in the hangar at D’Qar. It's stronger sometimes, like he's so close that she almost expects him to round the corner. She sees it, too, in her mind’s eye. In her imagination he is never wearing his mask .

Sometimes his lightsaber is blazing in his hand.

Sometimes he is simply there to talk.

She doesn’t know which one unnerves her more. It puts her on-edge, like she's constantly waiting for a bomb to go off.

The Force is still pulling them together. It’s still calling for blood. They won't be able to stay away from each other for forever. He’ll show up.

Or she’ll find him.

* * *

 

He does show up again.

She's not even surprised to see him.

This time there is no battle; there is no one besides the two of them. Luke sent her to find an old tome, but now she wonders if he sensed that Ren would be there, too. She can’t help but think that he set this up.

Or maybe the Force has just gotten tired of waiting for blood.

Whipped around by the rain and wind, his hair and clothes make him seem very dark. It reminds her of her dream.

She’s thankful for the darkness provided by the clouds. It hides the flush of her cheeks.

“Ren,” she calls out over the wind.

He whirls around to face her, his weapon a solitary slash of crimson at his side.

“Rey,” he calls back, sounding more surprised than she expects. She can't make out his expression very well in the darkness and rain.

“It's been a long time,” she finds herself saying. Four months since Belasco – not that she’s going to admit that she’s kept track. She has been counting the days, to their confrontation or just until she saw him again. She doesn’t really think about which one it was.

A beat, and then, “Did you miss me?”

“Don't flatter yourself,” she returns. She wonders if her voice sounds strange to his ears, too. “People thought you were dead,” she goes on, trying to seem unaffected. “But I knew better.”

He still hasn't moved from his spot. His robes whip around his legs, and his hair sticks to his cheeks in thick clumps. It’s almost as if she’s talking to a statue.

He doesn't respond.

There's something – _not right_ about him. Something _off._

She just can't put her finger on it.

“Do you remember,” he asks suddenly, his tone strange and unreadable, “what you told me? That the Force’s will is for us to die?”

Unease shoots up her spine like ice.

How can she ever forget?

“Yes."

He steps forward, but only once. “I think you were right.”

_Oh_.

She raises her blade only a split-second after he raises his. But he hesitates.

She surprises herself by speaking.

“You don't want to fight me.” She tries to sound like she knows what she only guesses. When he doesn't immediately respond, she barrels on, “You don't _have_ to. We can just-”

“Talk?” He scoffs. “No, we can't.”

He prepares to swing.

“I don't want to die.”

She doesn't say it like a plea. She states it as a fact. The answer to a question from a dream.

The rain and wind whips around them, the only movement between the two.

“Do you?” She demands.

Ren doesn't move. 

“ _Well_?”

“What's it matter?” He snaps.

She straightens. “I don't _want_ to kill you just because the Force wills it. _Fuck_ the Force,” she yells, chest heaving. “I've had enough of it, enough of being frightened by it and its bloody destiny!”

His blade lowers, but he looks furious. “It doesn't _matter_ how you _feel_ ,” he throws in her face. “It doesn't matter if you feel swept up or _drowned_ in something bigger than you that only calls for blood. You can't escape your destiny.”

It's probably the stupidest thing she's ever done – no, she _knows_ it is. She does it anyway. Without another thought, before she can rethink anything, she deactivates her lightsaber and tosses it away. She doesn't even look to see where it clatters.

But Ren does. His eyes go wide.

“What are you-”

“ _No._ You and I both know what it wants. I refuse to let it control me. I _won't_.” She spreads her hands wide, leaving herself entirely open to attack.

“So you can do what it wants and kill me. Or – _don't_.”

He looks – horrified, she realizes. His arm is shaking, just a little. It's barely visible through the rain.

A moment passes, and then another.

And then – he stumbles away from her. By his expression, she might very well be about to explode.

“You can't fight destiny,” he repeats vehemently.

She raises her chin, but doesn’t speak.

I will, is what she says with her gaze.

His eyes sweep over her form, flicker to wherever her lightsaber landed, and then return to her. She understands in that moment how very much alike they are, how they’ve been in the same boat ever since the Force called them together. She’s been terrified of this, their confrontation – and so has he. They’re exactly the same.

She wants to say something. Wants to tell him that she _understands_ , that it’s the same for her. That it’s always been the same for her.

They’re the same.

The revelation is nearly enough to wrench an incredulous laugh from her. How bizarre the feeling of relief that grows in her chest, the sense that she’s not in this alone. That her enemy is the one who understands.

It’s not just her.

Ren deactivates his violent red blade. There's suddenly no light between them, just the rain and wind and dark.

_Very slowly_ , she takes a step towards him. Then she takes another. She draws close enough to see his eyes through the rain and shadows. She can’t quite read his expression, but she thinks that he might have already realized what she just did.

Holding her head high, she says, “We _can_ fight destiny.”

* * *

 

In that moment, drenched and wide-eyed, they become - not enemies. They don't exactly become friends or allies, either, but it's something.

It's _something_.

He won't go with her. She won't go with him. They both have to return to their people. She opens her mouth to ask if he would ever-

She stops herself, a little shocked that she would even consider asking.

He would never.

But maybe-

No. That is a conversation for another time.

She finds that she doesn't want to part ways.

Especially now that she understands them better. Now that she knows they're - _together_ in this.

It's not like they won't see each other again, she believes they'll _always_ see each other again, but it feels – like she shouldn't go. It doesn't feel like the Force, but she can't really be sure. Maybe it really is the Force’s pull, trying to drag her back to fulfill her destiny.

Kill or die.

But it doesn’t feel like the Force.

It doesn't feel dark or malicious. It just feels like she doesn't want to leave.

She has to go, but she can't help but glance over her shoulder after only a few steps.

And when she sees that he hasn't moved, that he's standing exactly where she left him, looking like a shadow reminiscent of a dream, she knows the answer.

It's not the Force. That's not the why she feels the pull.

It's just him.


End file.
